


In The Ocean Of My Memory

by gregariousProtagonist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dream Bubble, F/F, Ladystuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 17:39:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/612460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gregariousProtagonist/pseuds/gregariousProtagonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are dead. The ocean smells different here, like someone bottled salt water and fish to make perfume. If you stare at the water too long you can almost see the pixels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Ocean Of My Memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



The ocean smells different here, like someone tried to bottle the smell of salt, fish, and sunshine and sell it as perfume. It’s close to the real thing, but too manufactured to be the real thing. The color is off too, like someone messed around with hex codes until they found a color close enough. If you stare at the water too long you can almost see the pixels.

The dream bubble has created a combination of your favorite roleplaying scenarios and the last nice day before SGRUB, making this temperate high seas setting perfect for a life of pirating. Of course, the looping gif of waves and the complete emptiness of the dream make pillaging and murdering difficult.

It’s a shame, too, because the ship your deceased memory has saddled you with is literally your dream boat. The hull is black and thick, built to take a hit even from Gl'bgolyb and live to tell the tale. The sails are dyed in your blood color and decorated in your symbol striking fear in the heart of all who are unlucky enough to cross your path. And, in true pirate fashion, the figurehead was the sculpture of a brown-blood with large wings and bigger horns tied forever to the front of your prow. It is just the right amount of terrifying and arousing, a statue that could start a revolution if the light was right. Sometimes you catch yourself looking at it and wondering if young Pupa would have grown into this.

This is not one of those times, as luck would have it, for ahead of you there is an obstruction on the too blue ocean of your death. If you didn’t know any better you would think it was another ship, but you’ve sailed these waters for sweeps. The meaning of loneliness is tattooed on the roof of your mouth and the backs of your eyelids.

You bridge the gap between you and the object in a time that might have been minutes and might have been full sweeps. Time here makes your head hurt if you think about it too hard. Instead you focus on the ship that looks like yours blocking your path.

You think something went wrong in the pocket of code that holds the remnants of your soul saved by the game. This might be your ship mirrored in some glitch. The first sentient being you encounter since your arrival on this plane might be yourself. Everything you’ve wanted to say to yourself has already been muttered over days or sweeps or minutes spent in this bubble. You ready the fluorite octet.

Closer examination tells you that this ship is not some glitch in coding. It is similar to your vessel in structure and size, but the sails are orange with yellow suns. Still, it could be a doomed version of yourself, someone doomed to die bravely this time.

You call out to the ship in a voice loud enough to dislodge the crust of underuse from your vocal chords. No one answers. You take it upon yourself to board the ship. This is your afterlife; you can do what you want.

Your first glance over the ship suggests that no one lives here. Is it a ghost ship? Can there be ghost ships in dream bubbles? The answer is probably not, so you shove the feeling of unease deeper into your gullet and decide to brave the captain’s quarters. If anything it will be empty and you can move in, a change of scenery will do you good on this monotonous ride. The door opens with little effort. The inside is not at all what you expected.

It reminds you of your hive, a spider motif with dark walls. It’s not your memory though, the walls are lined with books and journals overflow onto the floor. At the desk sits a troll, older than you by a sweep or two, maybe. She looks nothing like a pirate, round in the hips and soft in the arms. She is more suited for reading books and giving lectures behind a large, oak desk. Still, there is a feathered pirate hat resting on the corner of the desk and she is the only troll in sight.

When you ask her who she is and what the hell she thinks she’s doing in your dream.

She tears her eyes away from her book, as though it is the most trying thing in the world, and says, “My name is Mindfang.”

You inform her that this is impossible since you go by that name. You make sure to drag out your vowels so they are exactly eight syllables and spit out the “b’s” in a way that makes them rounded.

She asks you pleasantly how you can possibly be Mindfang when she is, and wouldn’t you mind leaving her to read in peace? Sweeps in the bubble have made her a touch anti-social. She apologizes for being rude.

The way she smiles at you and adds the same roundness to her “b’s” makes you angry in a way you haven’t felt since before your death. It is exhilarating, this feeling of life that courses through you, and you act on it. The octet is on the ground before the imposter-fang has time to turn a page and luck is on your side. Ancestral awakening drapes you in the only garb you need to prove yourself.

You pull her up from her desk and press your sword to her neck. You’re glad for the sword, this is a personal attack. He hair smells like wood soaked with sea water and the dream bubble suddenly smells more authentic. Like the program that feeds your memories to the code found a better way to translate ocean into binary.

“I understand your frustration,” she says. It is a practiced voice fit for bedtime stories or feelings jams. This is not the time for conciliatory advances. “I would just like to remind you that you cannot kill what’s already dead. At least not with a sword.”

You loathe her and love her and want to pap her in one terrifying and confusing moment. This imposter, this you from somewhere far away, this you who isn’t you at all has come here and reminded you that you’re lonely. And you needed that. And you hate that.

“I’m not actually Mindfang,” she says to you, pushing the sword from her vital parts. She cuts her finger on the blade and you watch a trail of cerulean roll from under her skin before disappearing completely. Now you know what happens when you’re hurt here. You haven’t even tripped since you died.

“My name is Aranea,” she continues. “Aranea Serket.”

“Vriska,” you say in reply. Your last name comes out as an after thought, forgetting that you’ve never met this creature before and she doesn’t know you share a hatch name.

“It seems,” she continues, brushing her skirt down. It clings to her in a way that Kanaya’s never did. More like Aradia’s skirts, the way her hips curve and dip in a way that makes you feel older than your six sweeps. “It seems our dream bubbles have collided. This is not uncommon, I have been fortunate enough to interact with other trolls after my passing. I was usually aware of the occurrence, but perhaps because our fantasies have such a similar presentation we did not notice. I too have always desired to be a pirate.”

You explain to her that pirating is not something you desire, it’s something you are. And even though you suspect she hears the dishonesty in your voice she chooses not to comment. Instead, she smiles in a way that makes you excited and uncomfortable.

“You’re a real pirate, then?” she asks. “Do you have a crew then? A memory of them, perhaps?”

You explain that you don’t need a crew, since you are skilled enough for eight trolls on the high seas. She nods like this makes sense.

“I might ask you then if I can join you. You see, my knowledge of pirates only comes from books so I’m afraid I’m not the best at sailing. I am a fine astronomer though, I can help you navigate.”

You don’t mention that the suns very rarely set in this dream bubble, and allow her to board your vessel. Your tongue has dislodged the uncomfortable feeling of sandpaper and now feels more like it did when you spoke on a regular basis.

She knows little about pirating, but she knows just how to talk to you. And after the first kiss you ignore the looping gif of waves and pixel outlines of your manufactured memory. Maybe death isn’t so bad after all.


End file.
